Travelling west from Torpoint through Antony and Higher Tregantle on the Crafthole road, one can see, partly concealed beneath many years of overgrowth, two solidly built granite forts,

Named Scraesdon and Tregantle, they were part of a series of fortifications that encircled the Port of Plymouth during the mid-19th century to protect the vital naval base at Devonport.

In the early 1890's, Tregantle and the other forts facing seaward were equipped with heavy shore batteries to improve the coastal defences. Tregantle's complement of four 9 inch marine-type guns was set in reinforced emplacements of concrete and red brick and mounted on swivelling platforms at tregantle Down Battery a short distance east of the fort, where they were able to cover an arc of fire across the wide expanse of Whitsand Bay.

A military railway was built to serve these installations with a ter¬minus at Wacker, in the upper reaches of the Lynher river to which equipment was conveyed in admiralty barges.

Its rolling stock and probably the track were originally destined to assist in the Sudanese campaign, and in 1885 were shipped to Suakim, on the Red Sea.

Fell Through

However, with the assassination of General Gordon and the fall of Khartoum, the plan fell through and the equipment was all returned to Britain.

After a prolonged period of storage at some unknown military base, the War Department decided to assign the bulk of it to this part of the Westcountry, where in stages, under the supervision of the Royal Engineers the railway was built.

The site's isolation and lack of physical links with any other railway or surfaced highway meant that again the equipment had to be transported by water, and so two sturdily-built pierheads were built by specially-dredged deep channels.

Barges were maneuvered beside the piers by small, powerful steam tugs, but despite intensive dredging, movements were restricted to the top of the tides.

The route, to Higher Tregantle via Scraesdon Fort, involved constructing a cable incline, a method that avoided a circuitous detour and reduced expenditure to a minimum. The inclined portion at a severe one-in-seven gradient passed beneath a bridge carrying the Torpoint - Liskeard roadway, which was neatly finished in local granite, its design conforming to standards found on many other railways.

The track had a central common rail and just above the bridge it broke into a passing loop at the half-way point. At the summit and before entering Scraesdon yard. it passed through a cutting as an ordinary single track, and thereafter fanned out into a run-round loop. This yard be came the focal point for unloading all incoming stores, and one siding served a small galvanised-iron engine sheds. The bridge that spanned the cutting that lead to Scraesdon fort's only entrance was a heavy iron structure. From this point silhouetted against the skyline, Tregantle fort can be seen, and before it on a conspicuous ledge, the railway's course

On completion of all incline exchanges consignments for Tregantle Fort were segregated and prepared for the last part of the journey. Weight restrictions limited the number of trucks, and ascending the last half-mile 967 would strain its energy to the utmost.

To ensure a clear run a soldier manned the level-crossing gates from where he could see a train departing from Scraesdon and would leisurely open the gates in its favour. In the reverse direction each truck was braked individually until it arrived at the Antony-Crafthole road. After a brief halt here they were released for the gradual climb to Scraesdon.

Ten Years

After surviving barely ten years this project heard its abandon¬ment announced by the War Department when a decision was reached to withdraw the coastal guns. This change of policy was probably due to their costly maintenance and the enormous expense of continually dredging the navigable channels. The railway before finally closing down returned the guns to Wacker Quay, leaving the remaining supplies to be conveyed by road to Torpoint and Devonport. Transport facilities then consisted of horse and mule companies, for mechanical lorries were then only in their infancy.

There is some indication that the line from Wacker Quay to Scraesdon Fort was retained until alternative arrangements were completed.

Some sections of the track were lifted at a very early stage, while the remainder was taken up during a munitions drive in the Great War.

There is some doubt about what happened to the rolling stock and the incline engine house though according to some reliable sources the lower section's locomotive, whose identification was unknown, remained in its shed until the early thirties. In a sorry plight of deterioration it was eventually broken up and taken away by road. The shed was used to by the Cornwall County Council road works department.